Drops of Love, Hate, & Fruitcake
by smokingace
Summary: Allen forces Kanda to atone for his sins while Lavi has his fun with it. High school AU series.


**Title: **Drops of Love, Hate, & Fruitcake

**Pairing: **Kanda/Lavi, Allen/Lenalee

**Rating: **PG-13 for derogation, language, and sexuality

**Disclaimer: **DGM belongs to Hoshino Katsura et al

**A/N:** High School AU; the one where Lavi helps Kanda do a very bad thing and Kanda must be the one to own up to it.

&

This is where the harshest cleaning agent cannot measure up to his viper's tongue. This is where you can stoop and still find his anger in his toes, ready to kick you up the ass if you're being stupid again, or if you're about to be. (But you should be stupid; he likes kicking ass. It keeps him distracted from all the real drama.)

But as of right now, Kanda is being held responsible for Allen Walker's wah-wah suffering wah-wah fake drama, and, sadly, it would be a bit beneath him to lash out when Allen fucking Walker is already down due to Kanda's allegedly loose lips. Wait, no. That's _malicious_ lips.

"I cannot believe you!" Walker is screaming.

"Walker." Pause. "How did you get this number?"

"I honestly cannot believe you!"

"Yes, I heard you already."

"You don't even go to our school anymore!"

"I already heard you, yes." How, in many ways, can Kanda say this?

Walker pauses blusterously. "Did you act alone? Fess up, Kanda, did you have an accomplice, and what might his name be?"

How diplomatic of him. Kanda sighs. "Walker," he says into the phone, "I'm assuming you've finally heard."

"Heard, he says. Heeeard."

"Who the _hell_ are you talking to?"

There's movement, clawing, and some minor scrape in battle. "C-Cross."

"Tell him to lay off the Bloody Maries."

"They're called Mary's. Ag, he's already moved onto that one drink with the lemon twist in it? It tastes okay."

Kanda can see the path Walker shall take in the nearest future. He's inclined to gnaw on the mouthpiece. Thinking of chewing thinking of chewing –

That Ankle-biter Walker must quit making that chewing sound.

"Anyhow! Kanda! How dare you?"

"What? I had said merely three feckless words to Bitter Bobby." _So Fuck You for the day_.

"W-why on earth?! Oh bloody – _golly_, you know how much he hates me!"

And that, bitter youth, is why. "I'm assuming he told the entire student body?"

"The entire student staff, too!"

They pause. Now that's just getting carried away. "Walker, calm the fuck down."

"No!"

Kanda breaks his brow in concentration. "I said calmthefuckdown!"

"Oh, okay."

Kanda waits, frowning at his ragged cuticles and wondering how much of his time Walker is wasting.

"And! What three, um, _feckless_ words?"

"I thought you heard?"

"Tell me anyway. Will you please tell me, please?"

Hmmm. Now - what was it? "_Walker's_. _So_. _Gay_." Hmmm.

There is an audible gasp, a clunk, and then a shriek about his poor darling mobile. Then nothing.

*

A minute or two later, Walker calls back. "You're insufferable!"

"I was going to say the same thing of you."

"Then why didn't you tell Bitter Bobby _that_ instead of – of – of _that_!"

"I now wonder that myself."

"Thanks a lot - f-for nothing!"

"I was going to – yeah." He nods to himself, popping his neck. "Same to you."

Click.

*

Ring ring _cause_ _you're hot then you're cold_ ring.

Kanda is content to kick Lavi's ass for that. They'll make a day of it. Where is his date book?

No longer able to avoid the call, he picks it up.

"Kanda!" Well, crap.

He answers with silence, though he will deny his last name just as much as his first from here on out.

"You wanna know what they're saying about me? What Bitter Bobby said to Sassy Susan who told those Jas_devil_ twins? Well, I call them that because they are the devils. From hell. Honest! You know, last month they stalked me to my house. My house! That's where I sleep! And _eat_." On and on and on, something about Cross reaching for his gun. "And you wanna know who _they_ told?!"

Not particularly. "It's whom."

Abrupt calm. "Whom?"

"_Whom_." Hear it once, hear it five thousand times.

Walker gives a well-rehearsed sneering sound. Kanda gives it back, well-practiced.

"Sometimes Lavi should just kick it," Walker says matter-of-factly.

"He will. He's fucked with my phone far too much," Kanda says matter-of-factly.

"Okay."

"Okay, then." Shit, he needs to remember to tend to his herb pots.

"Kanda?"

Shit, they're drooping. "What."

"I really wish you wouldn't test me."

"I test only my own limits. What do you want, aside from spitting into the phone."

"I've been thinking about this. I think you should reap the consequences. Now, please, I have an appropriate punishment – well, not really a punishment, per se. But I think it illustrates my point exactly. And it's a dare, and you like dares, don't you? I can recall that one time you - "

"Walker, you've been talking through the New Year."

"But it's only the summer?"

"My point exactly."

"See, now you're just making me hate you. I don't want to hate you."

"And." That's an improvement, really.

"Kanda!"

"What." Then he sighs and bares a tooth at the phone. "Fine. You want me to kiss your ass? Tough luck, not happening. What other options do you have for me?"

Walker makes a fantastic noise of frustration. "U-um, Lenalee's here now to chat. So can you call back later?"

_Can you keel over and_ _die_?_ Can you keep Lavi's hands from mauling your ass_? Especially that last one.

"Uh. Kanda? Are you there? Kanda, I know you're there. Kanda!" Pause.

_Can you deal with your own shit without dragging innocent bystanders into it_ - ? Especially, _especially_ that last one.

"So," Kanda says, a bit innocently to the untrained ear.

"So! I have just the thing. Please stand by, as Lena's brother likes to say, thank youuuu – " Click. What.

Kanda makes to turn his mobile off, but reconsiders since he'd sort of, _sort of_, be afraid to miss that future call, though he would also be afraid to take that future call, because whatever comes spewing out of Walker's head can never be a good thing, what with all that late-night eating and so-called studying parties he has with that bookworm freak and that elfish girlfriend of his, though we're talking about Lenalee Lee here, Kanda's childhood friend and overbearing cling-on. Anyway, he chooses to stow it in beneath his mattress, hoping to squash the ghost in the machine.

He sighs.

*

Just as he's about to take his non-catnap, his mobile is ringing from the depths of. . . Where is that motherfucker? Oh, under the mattress. Okay. That's solved. Kanda grips it fitfully, smiles wanly, and chucks the mobile into his waste basket. He rolls over and goes to sleep.

*

He growls into his pillow, bites into it, then releases.

That bloody contraption is starting to get old.

_Yeah, you pms, like a bitch, I would know_.

Kanda begins to wonder if it plays the whole entire annoying-ass song. Not that he would know the words. Annoying-ass annoying, like taking-it-up-the-fucking-ass-annoying. And Kanda. Would know it.

"I suggest you take a number," Kanda answers. He's flipping the phone shut when his father – _not_ his father – sings, "Don't do it, _Yuuuuuu_."

Kanda stares at his drapes that are hanging by their threads. He considers replacing them with the blackest satin. "Uh?" he ventures.

"Yuu, this is your loving, doting father calling to tell you - "

"In that case, you are number zero."

"But Yuu, zero isn't a number," says the starving artist who should, for once, not be weird, who should take offense, and again, who should not be so _weird_.

"Correct. Good-bye," Kanda says dully, threatening the empty room with his thumb over the button. He waits.

"Yuu-_kun_."

Deal breaker is _go_.

He hangs up and resolves to buy some black drapes with his father's money. He'll use his own for black nail polish, which he'll have to talk himself into wearing in the next one hundred years.

Like that's going to happen.

*

Katy Perry is in his flat again. _Lady, you are not the queen bee of the effing disco party, sorry._

He blearily answers his phone again for the last time, swear to the god of war. "Shove it," he says, and wipes the drool from his pillow.

"Hey, bro, wuddup? 'Kay, just callin' to tell ya to talk with your pops."

"Whatever, Lavi."

"So you're awake?"

"Now I am."

"Diggin' that. Ya wanna come over? Hang? Snort some pixie dust? Sticks? Whatever yo' thang?"

"If that is your way of saying you want sex, then naturally, no. Also, speak normal English before I have you shot."

"Gotcha. Come over and you can receive your punishment. Allen's here. He's pink with fury. Didja know? He's dyed his hair red, like mine. Though mine is _au natural_. Yeah, yeah, Allen, he's here. S-say _what_?" Snorting. "Sorry, Yuu, he's foaming at the mouth. Hold on."

Kanda can hear that Walker screaming about being _red_ with fury, actually, and how Kanda is such a hater – he mustn't say a mean word about his new hair color - and how Kanda will grow to be an old maid – no, worse, a geezer with a beard! – and have false teeth from all the fights he's been in because he can't get along even with his rock 'n roll boyfriend. (A cue from Lavi?) And how Kanda is such a loose-lipped overgrown child who always resorts to violence to get his way but who does not necessarily get his way, you know, so that's a bust most of the time since Kanda just makes himself look like a freelance street fighter who can't dance to save his honor, but worse! (Short of amusing, really.) Ultimately, judging from this, has Kanda gone out and told everyone about you-know-that-one-thing?

Kanda licks his tooth. "What thing?"

"Oy, I should get in on this," Lavi says, and Kanda can hear him shouting to Walker.

"I shall never say!" Walker shouts back.

Kanda frowns. "How am I to know what I've said to the entire student body if he won't help me to acknowledge it, and perhaps, as if I would allow it, atone for my sins?"

Lavi repeats this quite happily to Walker, who must be eating, because whenever he talks, he sounds like his usual self. He eventually has to intercept the phone.

"Kanda, you need to call your father!"

"So I've heard."

"Yeah!"

"Yeah."

"Yeah! And you know that one thing. You know."

"What thing?" Kanda repeats.

"Um." Walker makes a sound of self-confusion.

Aww, running out of ankles to bite?

"Kanda, are you listening?"

"There's nothing worth listening to."

Walker spends the next minute either a) smashing his phone into something hard, like chocolate, or b) smashing his phone into something soft, like tapioca.

"Right. You can waste the rest of your own time cleaning out your phone's number pad and I will go catch up on sleep."

It is noon.

"Wait one moment! Kanda. You owe me."

Silence.

Sure he does. Sure. He'll give Walker that.

"And I know you know what you know about me. It stays between us. If that's okay," Walker adds.

Sure.

"Please tell me that's okay?" Walker asks hesitantly.

Silence. Oh sure. "Sure," Kanda says impishly.

"Okey-dokey! See ya on the flip side. That is, please come over? Lavi's place, okay?"

Sure.

"And Kanda? Call your father. You're lucky he cares so much to call all your _nooon_-friends only to pressure you into calling him back. He worries."

Sure he does.

"Um, so. I don't have a father - anymore. So, you're lucky."

Oh god not that again _good-bye_.

Kanda hangs up.

*

Lavi's flat is not up in party flair when Kanda gets there, which is good.

He was expecting the worst.

But when he actually enters and starts to settle himself down with an imported tea that Bookman has the decency to take under the table, Walker lands the big one.

Which is bad. And Kanda had still been expecting the worst of it.

This big one comes in the form of an ultimatum, sugar-less and altogether bitter.

Walker is nodding, very proud to have come up with such a disgusting use of words.

Kanda stands up, unhappy to have no tea left to throw at that smug face. He flips his mug over onto the table as if to simply say, _I be mad_.

Walker simply hides behind Lavi. "Kanda! You promised not to get mad!"

"Over my lifeless corpse."

"Kanda, be reasonable." Walker jumps on his toes behind Lavi in order to watch Kanda over his shoulder.

"Yeah, Yuu, suck it up. Ha, get it? Suck it up?" To be safe, most likely, Lavi grabs his new antique books from the table, carefully tucking them so tight against his chest that, sooner or later, the books might be inclined to come alive and start nursing. Kanda watches him deposit them on a shelf and out of sight.

Walker is still pretending to exist only in voice.

"Kandaaaa."

"I don't deserve this."

"If that's what you want, then I will tell the whole school – "

"It's the summer, smartass."

"No, I still have to finish my classes!" Yeah, the remedial ones.

"I'm supposing that makes you more of a smartass."

Walker stops squawking, wagging his finger over Lavi's shoulder. Lavi lowers his shoulder for accommodation. Walker pats him in that nice, sick way. He returns to his wagging. "You said you would go along with this."

"Not this."

"You never specified!"

"That's because you're a tw – "

And this is when Lenalee so chooses to arrive.

Kanda derails his long line of name-calling. "Lee!" he barks.

"Yuu!" she barks, throwing her bag at him. He catches it and plunks (yes, plunks) it down beside his overturned mug. Then she scuttles up next to him and looks at Walker and Lavi through Kanda's eyes.

"Allen, you look ridiculous." She crosses her arms to match Kanda's.

"That's what I've been trying to tell him all these years," Kanda says, feeling that fuzzy, too-much-ginger-ale sensation at the back of his stomach. He inches away from her.

"Are you wearing perfume?" he asks her, and for an instant, she looks up at him with false eyelashes. Oy. Women.

She frowns and gingerly grabs a handful of his hair for him to smell. He does. She then turns back to Lavi and says, "You mustn't leave your door unlocked like that. A bad man could walk right in."

Kanda turns toward them to see the expressions on their faces, directed straight at the bad man. He almost chooses to smile. "You _opened_ the door for me."

Lavi winks that horny bastard wink. Walker only whines about the consequences and how Kanda should abide by them like a good sport.

_It's what good men do._

Lenalee hums and reaches behind Lavi to ew, kiss, ew, Walker.

Who invited her anyway?

Kanda sucks it up, as Lavi would say, and sits down on the couch for another cup of tea.

"So, are you ready to suck faces?" Lavi says, sliding into the spot beside him sans Walker.

Sans Walker. Which is –

"Fuck," Kanda says, holding his mug out for more tea. He'll pretend it's gin.

*

"C'mon," Lavi says.

"No."

"C'mere?"

"No way."

Lavi sighs and gives up. Kanda doesn't believe it.

"Give me more of that high, pricy tea and we'll talk."

Lavi bounds away with the mug, prancing gaily. Obviously he's been taking lessons from –

Walker approaches, a tray of assorted desserts before him. He wears this crucifying expression that reads all over the bow of his lips. Kanda vaguely wonders how Walker gets away with such crap.

Walker sets the tray down on the coffee table.

They share a very mean yet (an understandable) deprecating look. Kanda tries not to think about it.

"You have nothing on me, Walker."

"Oh, gee, like there's nothing I can't dig up. I have Cross for a guardian, remember?"

Kanda deadpans at Lenalee. She looks away, playing with her wispy hair.

"He's only my guardian because my father died in a very unfortunate accident when I was little. . ." Walker continues.

Kanda can safely assume Walker cried himself to sleep every night. "Fine. Where's Lavi."

Lenalee snaps out of her female-la-belle routine. "I've got the lozenge right here!"

"Don't appear so excited, Lee."

"Oh, don't worry, Kanda. I'm just excited."

*

After they've arranged Kanda and Lavi on the couch, with the notorious lozenge in their midst, Walker and Lenalee take it upon themselves to get nice and comfortable at the island in the kitchen, by which it is to say Walker has Lenalee up on the counter and by god if she does not get down or if Walker does not indeed help her down, Kanda is going to be the one to make them pay his dues for him.

Even though, sure, it had been kind of mean to tell the whole school something about Walker being gay, when Walker is clearly. . .only a little gay, at best. Well, it wasn't Kanda's fault anyway. And maybe Walker should stop acting like the lovechild of Komui and his famous queer cook friend, Jerry.

Not that Kanda has anything against gay men.

Since, you know, Kanda is kind of. . .

No, _Lavi_ is just that persuasive.

Presently, Lavi is looking at Kanda as if the latter has just grown another pair of balls. On his face. "Uh, Yuu? Release the cough drop."

"Eh?"

"Leggo!"

Kanda lets it go, mumbling about how he's going to throw away the key to Lenalee's chastity belt.

Lavi unwraps it, rolling his eyes, and reaches to coax open Kanda's mouth.

"Or you could use chocolate! It would be faster!" Walker says in that tone indicative of some hidden yearning to get over his own fears.

"Or _you_ could," Kanda replies helpfully. He opens his mouth, knowing Lavi is touching his lip for a bit too long. He snaps shut when he can feel the lozenge dropping onto his tongue. Lavi laughs nervously. Kanda smiles.

His smile only widens at Lavi's response to Walker.

"You know that survey with our fellow Brits that claims nine out of ten peeps like chocolate? Well, you're that tenth person, Allen, which means you are the greatest liar on this fairly ugly planet. Apart from me, of course."

*

It takes a few minutes for Kanda to work up the nerve, in front of those other brats, but he somehow manages it. Which is to say, he entertains himself with the thought of Lavi drinking down his germs.

This is just like kissing. Right?

Lavi sneaks in a little tongue action when Kanda leans over to retrieve the lozenge from his mouth. He blushes and nearly swallows.

So not right.

Kanda can hear Walker screeching on about what he'll do to Kanda if Kanda won't sink to his level and swap spit and cough drops with silly ole Lavi.

Then he can hear Walker saying to Lenalee about what they'll do for date night and if Komui knows anything yet about their dating status.

Lenalee says that Komui is as oblivious as ever.

Kanda knows for a fact that Komui is smarter than he looks. And for fuck's sake, he knows more about Mars' atmospheric conditions and where he can find the same conditions on earth (i.e. Lavi's crotch) than Kanda will ever know about the same. . .crotch.

There's a point here. It's just hard to think of it with Lavi's tongue back in his mouth.

"Lenalee, I should buy a whistle. Lavi, do you have a whistle anywhere in this rubble?"

Lavi pulls away from Kanda, the lozenge back in his mouth. He throws a Look at Walker. Lenalee swings her legs from side to side.

"We shouldn't be so hard on him, Walk – I mean, Allen. He does live alone half the time."

"This is true, Lenalee. It is almost worse than my living situation, you know, with Cross," he raises his voice, "my guardian. To tell you the truth, I don't even know if he's made himself legal yet. I mean, to care for me."

Lenalee seems to judge this as a funny turn of events and starts to giggle. Walker joins her, solemnly at first, then with abandon, burying his head against her ribs for support, for her to hug him against her.

Ah, that's hideous.

Walker turns his eye toward the couch and spouts, "Don't you forget this is your punishment. You should reflect on it."

"I'll reflect that if you so much as nibble her, I will go back to school and tell everyone, including the lunch ladies, about your little stint on Tyki Mikk's lap. They will have no qualms in believing me, considering."

Walker gapes. He pulls away from Lenalee. "I! I! I will. Tell everyone. About your."

"My what?"

"I'll have to think on it." He gathers himself, snaps his fingers haughtily, and Kanda takes that to mean he must continue swapping spit with Lavi.

They're swapping the cough drop, but really. Call the kettle what it is.

*

"Oh no, Allen, they're enjoying themselves," Lenalee says, the liar.

Kanda shoves Lavi away from his neck. He works hard to erase the blush. And hickey. Ah fuck you, Lavi. He rubs hard at his broken blood vessels.

"That's not being a good sport, Kanda," Walker says, folding his arms and standing with his feet apart in front of them. He gets an idea when Kanda glares at him, which makes Kanda glare harder, which then makes Walker jab at the television's remote. One guess as to what he chooses.

Walker streams through them. "Oh oh aaanime," he hums.

"Crap," Kanda says, nearly biting the lozenge in two. It's still the size of a grape. Crap again.

"Oh, is this the one with the hero and all those mini-heroes and their beastly erotic hero suits?" Lavi says, distracted by the too-pretty-too-fake animated people.

"I think they'd call them uniforms, like in school," Walkers says brightly, tucking the remote into his back pocket. "This shall keep you focused."

"I don't think so," Kanda says.

"Oh, but I do."

"But I don't."

Walker stomps his foot and says, "But you will if you know what's good for you, you stinking louse slash asshole who lets _him_ put love bites on _you_!" He breathes in deeply and exits. Kanda can see from his position on the couch to where exactly Walker goes to unwind.

The food pantry.

"I hope he's fat by twenty."

"He's still on a diet," Lavi says.

They look at each other. Kanda quickly dispenses the thought of Lavi sucking on more than just that cough drop. He swaps it with him.

*

This anime show of complete crap has no end. Really, who is this hero and what does he think he's doing? You can't win a fight that way, you nitwit, especially with a _comrade_ who's wielding a _sword_, pff.

"Where's that fucking remote," Kanda sighs, sucking on the lozenge until his mouth shrivels into a permanent pucker. Lavi takes advantage of it, lacing his fingers into the back of Kanda's hair.

"Yuu, have you been usin' scented shampy?" He pauses. "Allen's got it in his ass. Ya wanna go back there?"

Kanda doesn't even have to think about it. "That's why you're going back there."

Lavi laughs into the hollow of Kanda's neck.

Kanda does not laugh.

"Oh, you were serious."

"As you know, I lack the capacity to be a fool. You more than make up for it." All my thanks. _Smile_.

"Oy, Allen!"

There is an eruption in the pantry and Walker comes barreling out, crackers and cheese-puffs scattering into hail. He stomps before them. Huffs. Licks his fingers and runs them through his dyed hair.

"Kanda here thinks you should give it back."

"The only thing I want to give him," Walker says exhaustedly, "is a disease." Kanda smirks in a dare. "I guess it's bad luck that I don't have one. Anymore." Silence. "It's all sorted."

"Sorted," Kanda echoes, lip curling.

"Kanda, when I say you must suffer, then the only conclusion to that is that you must – oooh, that hero is ace, he is!" Walker gets close to the television, giving them a full view of his ass. And ass crack. Target is remote. Remote control.

Lavi snorts and Kanda is inclined to get to the, uh, bottom of it all. "Walker. Frankly, I hate that hero, and I hate that series. In fact, I hate that anime horseshit. In addition, how many kilos have you lost so far?"

Walker's back stiffens. He does not turn around. "That's not what your father says," he says softly.

Apparently, telling the whole school about Walker had been a very bad thing.

And apparently, this means war.

*

"I don't need to endure this," Kanda says helplessly, searching through the drawers of the coffee table for an extra remote.

A candy wrapping. An empty pen. A mildewed cigarette butt.

Kanda scowls at Lavi. Lavi grins so hopeful around that lozenge. Kanda wonders if he could choke on it and stay choking on it.

"You were supposed to quit."

"I did!" He picks the butt from Kanda's palm and flicks it into the corner of the sitting room. Kanda scowls further. "If you keep looking, you'll also find a list documenting the countless times I've quit, and thus, started again despite my sole desire to please you, my todger love. You should look for it. Some of my best doodles are on it." Kanda scowls even further. "Hey, at least I can say I've tried those many times for you."

"For me." For Kanda?

Lavi raises his brows. Kanda doesn't know what to do aside from sticking his finger into the middle of those brows and pushing in. Lavi bites down on his piercing.

*

Lenalee skips into the room sometime later, Lavi pulling Kanda's hand away from his belt. She does a twirl and Lavi stares up her short skirt. Luckily she is wearing one of those short shorts that Kanda can hardly appreciate, except to say that he is glad she is wearing them.

"What did Allen say, boys?" she says, stealing a dessert from the tray that's still sitting there. Walker's probably trying to pass on his sugar lust.

Kanda's not about to fall victim to Lenalee's nonchalance. "What," he says - and blushes.

She blushes back. "Ummm. Cookie?" He crosses one leg over the other in a very arching manner. She follows it with an air of interest. "A-are you done with your punishment yet? Allen's too busy eating."

A light bulb inside goes _pop_.

"Eating? _Again_. You shouldn't be too lenient on him, Lena," he says, knowing very well how it must sound coming from _his_ mouth. He spices it up to give her some worry lines. "If he continues down this path of squandering indulgence, by the time he is college-age, he will be far too big to fit through the door. Possibly the door to your brand-new home together. Think _roly-poly_. Could you imagine starting a life with him in such a condition? Who knows, he could have stage two diabetes by then." Or whichever one will kill him. Not that he wants Walker dead. It's the thought that counts. "Think about it. Would you like to start off your honeymoon by paying extra for the plane seats?" He thinks he should go on, but the effect is already in progress. So he leans on his hand, smiling at his accomplishment.

She immediately turns back toward the kitchen, out of sight, almost out of mind.

Almost.

"Kanda!"

Kanda sits there with Lavi still staring at him, in fear, possibly.

"What did you say to my fiancé?" Walker demands, standing before them once again. He points, jabbing at the air. "Y-you-you've!"

"What did I do _now_."

"You've made my fiancé _cry_."

Kanda can hardly believe that. "No I didn't. She's a," he looks around, over the cookies, "a tough cookie." Yeah, that. That should make sense. But mostly not.

Walker stops jabbing. Kanda blinks. Walker scratches his nose. "Sometimes she smells like cookies, kinda like brownies, like sweet basil," he says.

Kanda looks from Walker to Lavi and back again. Lavi says something naturally inappropriate, and Walker throws one of those iconic cookies at him.

"I heard that!" Lenalee says from somewhere in Lavi's room. "Shape up!" she adds when they don't say anything.

Many people are hearing many things this day, and no one is about to shape up to anything.

"Hey, hey, whatcha doin' in there?" Lavi calls, about to get up. Walker gives a colossal yelp and Lavi is obligated to collapse back into his spot. They stare at Walker.

"Um! You, Kanda!"

Kanda can smell the decoy. He wants to humor the brat anyway. "Yes, fat boy."

"I'll have you know I weigh less than – "

"An elephant? Crew ship?"

Gasp. Now that's a sound Kanda can live with.

"You've made me into a piranhaaaa!" Walker squeals, tearing at his red hair and putting a hand to his forehead as if to feel for a temperature. He doesn't need to; Kanda could do it for him. He offers with a fist. Walker accidently rips out a chunk of fried hair.

"Oops," he says.

"Oops," Lavi says, pointing and guffawing. He falls into Kanda's lap and Kanda must be the one to ease him out of his fit. Nobody can blame him.

Nobody.

Kanda clucks his tongue at Walker, implying it's Walker's fault that Lavi's in a fit. Then he says, "I've made you into a _pariah_, you dyslexic idiot."

"That has got nothing to do with dyslexia, you hermit-head!"

Oh? Kanda looks down at Lavi. Lavi blinks and shrugs, tears in his eyes. "Is all semantics, is all," he says blearily.

Kanda looks up and shrugs. "Semantics," he echoes.

"F-fine! I might as well be a piranha! I'll go drown myself now!" Walker stalks off, probably to go molest Lena –

Fffff. Fine. That fruit. That fruitcake!

"Doesn't he know piranhas are a type of fish?" Kanda asks the room.

Lavi merely rolls in his lap and reaches up, forcing Kanda to have their own molestation-situation going on.

*

"Come to think of it, why are they doing it in my room?" Lavi asks a bit too late, lips badly bruised and swollen from - mmm.

"Once a fruit, always a fruitcake. I should tell Bitter Bobby," Kanda says, not really paying attention to what he's saying or where the lozenge has gone. He finds it under Lavi's tongue.

Don't ask.

Kanda dives halfway under the couch, in another fruitless (ah ha, that's right) attempt to find another remote. He digs through the cushions. He rips a seam. Lavi properly remonstrates him by grabbing his ass. He fights back with a hiss and kick. They fall back into the cushions without another remote to hamper their distress.

Which is all convenient anyway, since a battle is on the telly and Kanda likes battle scenes, no matter where they are or who gets to win. Just as long as some blood is shed.

"Oh I like this part," Kanda says.

Lavi sighs. "Wager you're the better liar."

"Damn straight."

"You wanna watch some anime later when they go home?" Touchy-touchy-feely.

"Yes, yes, then I'll give you your blowjob." Kanda swats at the air in Lavi's general area. "Now shut up so I can hear."

Kanda watches the remainder of the battle with great pride and sportsmanship, harping at the great swordsmen to cut that pansy's ass before the true bad guy can get them both. No world needs two heroes. Get real.

Kanda is especially fond of the part where the pansy wants to sacrifice himself for the good of kingdom come.

Reasons remain unknown.

*

Kanda has his nose glued to the screen when suddenly his once all-consuming world of screaming colors and pretty people goes blank, and his head hits the floor.

"I got him!" Walker shouts.

Kanda raises a finger. "The tackle was highly unnecessary."

"Where's the lozenge? Tell me, where is it?! I'm two seconds away from dialing Sassy Susan!"

Kanda uses his middle finger to point in Lavi's direction.

They both look at Lavi. He looks at them with huge addict eyes, a big huge question mark in between them. He swallows, hard, and grins.

Walker looks at Kanda. Kanda shakes his head. He winces. Concussion.

So, of course, with a concussion, he gets up quite nicely and clears his throat. "Diiiie!" he yells, a battle cry leaving no loopholes, pouncing at his once all-consuming comrade.

Lavi's pupils dilate into pinholes.

*

And of course, when Kanda wrestles Lavi to the floor, Kanda also happens to find a whole pack of menthols nestled safely under the coffee table. Taped there, literally, on the underside. He sits on Lavi's stomach and wrests the menthols from the tape.

"The fuck."

Silence.

"The fuck," Kanda repeats.

Silence.

Kanda proceeds to crumple the pack over Lavi's face.

"I give, I give! I can't quit, all right? Should know, never tell a bastard to quit fucking himself."

"Bullshit! Bullocks! Bum fuck!" Bum chum?

"No, really."

"Well, that's a relief. _Don't_ give me a call when you're crippled with lung cancer."

"Nah, Yuu, it's not like that. Just because they're there don't mean I smoke 'em."

"Speak normal English." Not that Kanda can't possibly, cross his heart and hope you die, understand him.

"You've heard of the classic fight against temptation, I take it," he says quietly, opaquely.

Kanda sits there atop Lavi's stomach for a time, mulling it over for entertainment purposes. He puts his fingers to Lavi's lips in the meantime. And Lavi breathes on them like a sorry animal. Breathing between pursed circumstances.

*

Some time passes in the limbo that is the heat of Lavi's belly. Kanda takes another minute to torture him slowly, then slides off onto the floor, to lie there, the remnants of tobacco and paper littered about. Lavi chuckles. There is a sound of suction. Then he holds up the lozenge between two fingers.

"I hate you," Kanda says, rather impassionate this time around. He really does hate him, though. It's true. However, they say love comes in strange packages, wrapped with hate and topped with a bow and arrow. The bow is for the arrow, and the arrow is for the son of a bitch who dares to make you stupid with –

_You know_.

Lavi chuckles again. "It's almost gone. Have at it."

Kanda is feeling lazy. He doesn't want to have at anything. He is being a sore loser. "Put it in."

"What. Where?"

"You know where."

"I can hear that disgusting display of – of loose lips!" Walker yells from Lavi's room.

They'd almost forgotten. Lavi coughs (to cover something up, oh yes), and sits up to slip the berry-sized lozenge into Kanda's mouth – wait, ear, what, ew. He quickly rights his aim and Kanda is back to square one, sucking on it at rapid speed. He listens to Lavi walk across the weak flooring; listening while Lavi enters his room and promptly shuts the door.

Uh. Preemptive silence.

This calls for the strike of the ninja. He guiltlessly bands himself for said strike, padding lightly to the bedroom door. He briefly wonders where Yuu-chan – where That Damned Cat could have gotten. Maybe playing with the electrical wires. That would be nice.

Kanda checks to make sure his feet do not step into the lighting that filters out from under most normal doors. He blends into the wall and nearly knocks himself unconscious with a hanging lamp from NoMan'sLand, Asia. Well. Don't hate.

He's a bit rusty.

But it all comes together like a well-oiled metal sharpener when he suddenly hears Lavi, who's the likeliest to have been strumming the guitar, stop and mutter something along the lines of _if that won't get his attention, nothing will._

The song? No, it's Kanda's current ringtone that _someone's_ about to die for, bet your fucking ass.

"Do you think it's too much?" Lenalee.

Yes, it's bad enough Lavi uses it as the soundtrack to their relationship.

Kanda could imagine the silence that follows is a thoughtful one. Hopefully.

"Nope, I reckon it's far too little. Barren, even." Lavi.

Perhaps he didn't hear right. Perhaps Lavi does not know what Kanda likes. And perhaps Kanda should teach him sometime.

"Of course you'd think that. Giving him a piece of. . ." Mutter mutter. What was that, Walker?

Here Lenalee giggles, bumping into something - papery? Cardboard. . .y? The only clue is that is crunches easily.

"Watch my arm! Don't step on it!" Lavi practically howls. It sounds like the guitar is flung aside in haste.

Kanda is very happy to be rusty at these ninja skills, for he will probably never (ever) use them again. Yes, you can be sure of that.

"_Now I'm all bent uuup, what a screwy angllle_," Lavi is saying.

Very sure, indeed.

He takes off down the hall and dives into the inner debris of the couch just as the bedroom door opens.

Notice that Kanda's not that rusty. He still knows how to escape the clutches of their perverted schemes and masquerading hypocrisy.

*

Kind of.

*

Kanda and Lavi swap something other than the quickly diminishing lozenge before Walker and Lenalee can finally emerge a few minutes (hours?) later, each of their faces beaming with something rather extremely odd.

Called _excitement_.

Kanda shoves Lavi away from his chest, swallowing the last speck of lozenge.

"Finished," he says simply. He would have stuck his tongue clear out, stained red, but he's just not the type (surprise, surprise). Lavi gets up from the floor, rubbing the bump on his head.

Walker, like your regular redheaded dunderhead (and newly acclaimed hellion), inspects. He also notices all the cigarettes and doesn't say a thing about them.

"Have you learned your lesson?" Walker says.

The impertinence.

"Have you fully comprehended the gravity of your actions? To the _fullest_,_ fattest_ extent?"

The insolence.

"Have you, in addition to forgiving me for exacting punishment upon you, forgiven yourself for making such a grave mistake in patronizing me and degrading me and mostly just debasing me in front of all my peers?"

The laughter!

Walker stands there, pouting. Kanda laughs and laughs, holding the stitch in his side. This feels good. This feels really good.

Lavi laughs along with him, and Walker points. "_He_ made me say it! Lavi, you butthole git, you set me up!"

"'Course I did. With that _button_ nose, you deserve nothing less." He promptly flicks Walker in the nose - rather flirtatiously, and goes off in search of a cure for boredom.

Kanda finds this extremely amusing (meaningless flirtation means nothing, after all) and cannot stop giving Walker a taste of his own medicine. (But this laughter thing is kind of fun, hands down.) He props himself against the couch as Walker stalks off after Lavi, the back of his head on fire. Lenalee, standing by like a mother hen, offers Kanda a triple-layered truffle she had been baking in the sly.

*

To her absolute and most debilitating delight, he eats it.

*

Too bad she's not Walker.

It would have scarred him for life.

*

It's just then that they hear Walker arguing (one-sidedly) with Lavi, and Lavi's happy-go-lucky sing-song voice rolling over their airwaves.

"Allen, you give new meaning to the colors of the rainbow, mate," he says.

Without further ado, Kanda civilly picks up an antique book and threatens to drop it. Lavi turns blue and clears his throat.

"H-how 'bout you quit bein' a nancy boy and show up your arch-nemesis, Allen," he finishes, watching as Kanda steadily lowers the book.

Walker seems to consider it.

A bit too much.

Thus Lenalee and Kanda both end up witnessing a demonstration involving Walker taking a truffle from Lavi's outstretched hand and smashing the entire piece into his own mouth. They also have the most honored privilege of listening while Walker makes those chewing noises last heard over the phone.

It is hard to say if it's surprising that Walker should commence gagging and wailing about the enemy being in his mouth, his mouth, good golly, holly, and rosemary, his mouth!

But then the miracle of silence makes a startling comeback when he suddenly stops and sucks on his bottom lip. "Actually. That's pretty good! Do you have anymore?"

Commence the celebration. (Kanda puts his fists to his hips and tilts his head.)

Lavi hoots on about finding something better than an overestimated cure for boredom and, alert the media, lung cancer. "Fuck yeah, baby, fuck _yeah_!" He claps Walker on the ass.

It's almost like porn.

Lenalee interrupts all the porn with a small, arrogant sigh. "Oh, I cured him a long time ago, silly. He's just doing this for sport now."

Ah.

Wait.

*

Wait, that's right. Kanda suddenly remembers his garden that is slowly dying at home. He also suddenly remembers Lavi's guitar and that Walker is human, thus breakable. He goes to fetch a) the guitar, and b) there is no _b_.

(But usually when said guitar meets the side of somebody's head, something painful is bound to happen. So one must suppose, logically, that _b_ would be Walker's head.)

Either way – good sport, good men, ha!

"Not my beautiful Rosie, Yuu!" Lavi gasps.

"Die, fruitcake!" Kanda yells, ironically quite himself.

"Oh dear," Lenalee sighs.

Much screaming ensues, followed by Walker tossing truffles behind his shoulder as he runs around the flat, Kanda hot on his heels, brandishing the guitar like a professional would never do.

Truth be told, he never felt so free in his entire wellbeing.

*

It is hard to tell if the mess on Lavi's face is made of real tears or if that's just his way of letting them know Rosie is in fact _not_ a toy. My, my, what another surprise.

Then, in an attempt to redeem this mockery of emotion, Lavi confesses (almost too willingly) that he was largely responsible for the rumor at school (hug hug Rosie my goddess! hug), and as a result, Walker's current reputation as a bottom-feeder (a very humble burn).

This does not go over so well, unfortunately, and they end up with truffles smattering the walls and Walker brandishing Rosie around as if she's his secret weapon minus the necessary style one must have in order to look good with –

Oh, shut the fuck up, everybody knows Lavi is the only one able to pull _that_ off.

Walker wants them to know that they've done a very wicked thing. Not bad. Wicked. Good. Bye.

Yes, all same to you, but as they say, before you leave, you _clean_.

*

What Walker does not know is that the rumor Kanda confessed to has nothing to do with his current reputation.

Not that it's of much importance anymore.

Fuck, today has lost all meaning. By late afternoon, Kanda is escaping the confines of Lavi's post-war flat and heading into the pitfalls of humanity.

Suppertime.

He doesn't admit to himself that Walker's scooter almost makes him laugh, or that the way That Damned Cat tries to make a break for it is really not that funny, when you think about it.

That fucking cat is a detrimental part of Lavi's spirit.

His mobile starts singing and it's after a few, slightly familiar rounds that he realizes that Lavi's tampered with it again. He stares at his pocket. It sings. He stares.

Maybe Kanda had been chasing the wrong person around the flat.

Lady Gaga continues to gaga garbage until he finally relents and answers.

"What."

"Yuu, that's not a nice way to answer the phone."

"Hello."

Theodore gasps ruggedly.

Kanda smiles. "Hello, Father." Beware, he means it.

"Come eat with us, Yuu. Daisya's home for a visit, Marie is here at last. Wouldn't you like to see them? They would like to see you. We would like some harmony in this household."

Kanda kicks a rock off the curb. "I would like to see many things."

There is a silence, but a comfortable silence, and soon Father is asking if Kanda wants to join him on an excursion into Barcelona, before the day Kanda must go to Japan arrives.

Soon Kanda is saying, yes, that sounds fine. That sounds. . .

And soon, Father is hanging up, expecting Kanda for supper in an hour, not at Kanda's flat, but at their household, some ways from here, standing tall, thriving with family who claim to want him there.

Kanda crosses the street without a crosswalk, smiling about his jaywalking skills and Lavi's sneaky ringtone-changing skills. True, Lavi never fails to make things interesting. He's got game, sure.

_Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah, roma, roma-ma, gaga, ooh la la -_

Sure, _want your bad romance._


End file.
